


Building Desks For Dummies

by thecayenneknight



Category: One Piece
Genre: Fluff, Koby/Helmeppo, M/M, Secret Santa, opsecretsanta2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-19 13:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecayenneknight/pseuds/thecayenneknight
Summary: Koby and Helmeppo must face their greatest mission yet: assembling a single piece of furniture.
Relationships: Coby/Helmeppo (One Piece)
Kudos: 39
Collections: OP Secret Santa 2019





	Building Desks For Dummies

“That can’t possibly fit in there,” Helmeppo says tartly. The instructions are in his hands but he’s not looking at them, he’s looking over Koby’s shoulder, squinting his already thin eyes at the two ends that Koby is trying to force together. “Are you sure you grabbed the right pieces?” he asks with a tone of voice that implies that he’s put furniture together before instead of paying someone else to do it for him.

“I’m sure these are the right ones,” Koby says with an edge to his voice. His patience is shrinking at an alarming rate between the desk that simply doesn’t want to be assembled and Helmeppo’s backseat carpentry.

This was supposed to have been an easy chore. They had come armed with a hammer, a screwdriver, and the kind of naïve optimism that solely belongs to young first-time homeowners. An hour ago it hadn’t mattered that neither of them had ever assembled a piece of home furniture before. Now all Koby could think of was the shabby rowboat that he spent two years building to escape Alvida, with its misshapen planks and suspect nails. It is a good thing he never used it as it probably would have fallen apart as soon as it touched the water. At least, that’s what he thinks about his carpentry skills now, as he is older and wiser and more skilled and being outsmarted by a desk assembly kit that came with _instructions_.

But they are Marines, so they doggedly soldier on.

“I think we’re supposed to put a peg in one of the holes so it stays together. Do you see any pegs?”

“Yeah, I think they were in the bag with the screws. Or they were in their own bag. Er…”

“Which side is supposed to face the outside? Wait, I think that’s backwards–”

“I can’t tell but maybe you have to assemble this part first so the drawers slide in?”

“What happened to the instructions?”

“Is this thing going to actually stand?”

But for all their steadfast determination, it eventually becomes apparent that they need to make a brief tactical retreat. The slide back on their butts and sit hip to hip against the wall of what will one day be their home office. Helmeppo slumps where he sits but Koby’s eyes never stop puzzling over the half-finished desk and trying to fit them all together in his mind.

“We have the whole weekend,” Helmeppo says mildly, wary of the borderline obsessive look spreading over Koby’s face. It’s an expression he knows well and has seen countless times before. The harder something is, the more Koby wants to do it. Telling him ‘no’ at that point is counter-productive, so he aims for a softer approach. “Let’s take a break and go get some lunch. There’s a grill over on Mauve Street that looks good. We probably can’t think straight because we’re so hungry.”

Koby responds by twisting his face in frustration. He raises his fist and brings it down against the floor in a flash.

Helmeppo yelps in surprise. “Hey! Watch where you’re punching! If you put a hole in the floor, _we_ have to fix it!”

“Sorry,” Koby mumbles, staring at his fist.

“Give me this before we have to patch the whole house.” Helmeppo grabs Koby’s hands and knits their fingers together. He pulls their hands toward himself so Koby is dragged along and pressed into Helmeppo’s arm. Koby blinks dumbly and heaves a deflated sigh.

“I just feel so dumb,” Koby says suddenly. “It’s only a piece of furniture, but we can’t even figure that much out and we have to fill this whole place with furniture. Then we have to keep all the maintenance up ourselves. I don’t even know the first thing about plumbing. I don’t know what to do if a light switch stops working or how to winter-proof windows. I’ve never even mowed a lawn before. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy but I thought I could at least figure how to put some boards together so they don’t fall apart!” The image of the shoddy boat flashes in his mind again. He turns his head and presses his firmly against Helmeppo’s shoulder.

“Hey now,” Helmeppo says in an impossibly soft voice. He wasn’t expecting that. He runs his thumb over the back of Koby’s hand while Koby continues to hide his face. He wants to distract him with a joke, something along the lines of how he should hurry up and get promoted to admiral so he can get an admiral’s salary and they can afford to hire people to take care of the house for them, but he’s able to resist the temptation at the last moment.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, either. Heck, I don’t even understand half of the chores you just listed. It’s overwhelming, but we’ve faced overwhelming circumstances before, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, we have.” Koby nods solemnly. “That’s a fair point. We’ve done way harder stuff than this. We’ve fought in a war, we’ve thwarted assassinations–“

“We’ve survived Garp’s training.”

Koby bites his bottom lip but he trembles with laughter. “There really isn’t anything we can’t do as long as we face it together.” He pulls back and looks up, smiling. Helmeppo smiles and kisses him softly on the lips. It’s reassuring. Building a desk is hard. Building a home together is harder. But Koby can’t wait to build an entire life with the man he loves.


End file.
